Losing Weight and Dieting: More on Willpower vs. Power

I’ve been reading all the willpower vs. power responses to my blog post, I thought it important to expand and clarify. Here is the blog, in case anyone missed it.I understand what many of you believe — that you can’t lose weight without being able to say NO to the candy, chips and soda. I agree with you. You need to be able to say “no” to that.However, while I understand that many of you really do believe that losing weight and staying fit = shutting your mouth, saying NO, and moving more — there is so much more involved.

There is an entire science dedicated to understanding the behaviors and psychology related to the human mind.Because of these blog responses, I felt compelled to review more scientific research on the topic.I came across Harvard researcher and scientist, Daniel M. Wegner — he has lots to say about this topic. Here are a few quotes from a paper he wrote that I thought could help:

“The experience of conscious will is the feeling that we are doing things. This feeling occurs for many things we do, conveying to us again and again the sense that we consciously cause our actions. But the feeling may not be a true reading of what is happening in our minds, brains, and bodies as our actions are produced. The feeling of conscious will can be fooled. “(Précis of the Illusion of Conscious Will by Daniel M. Wegner)

Wegner seems to be saying that as long as we believe that we are in control we are using our “will” to make something happen.For some of us, believing in willpower means we’re in control of our own lives. Probably why many of you have such strong feelings about the concept of willpower — the very idea that you can lose weight with or without willpower says a lot about who we are, and what control we believe we have — or don’t — over our lives.

Wegner goes on, “Consciously willing an action requires a feeling of doing, a kind of internal ‘oomph’ that somehow certifies authentically that one has done the action.”My interpretation:if we don’t somehow believe that we are working hard — sweating it out and putting tremendous effort into changing our behavior, we must be doing something wrong and it’s never going to work.

Many of you argued that willpower is critical for weight-loss success. My belief is that it’s more about putting effort into setting yourself up to succeed (i.e., using power techniques).I actually really appreciate Wegner’s illustration using magic as an example. For instance, when you see a magician doing his or her illusion, it’s seamless; you don’t “see” how the magic works — it just works.

“Any magician will tell you the key to creating a successful illusion: The illusionist must make a marvelous, apparently magical event into the easiest and most immediate way to explain what are really mundane events…Laws of nature are broken willy-nilly as people are sawed in half, birds and handkerchiefs and rabbits and canes and what-have-you appear from nothing, and also disappear, or for that matter turn into each other and then back again.”

But the reality is that the illusion (just like losing and controlling you weight) is much more complicated — of course it is.The magician did not just come on stage and perform the illusion.

“The magician needs special pockets, props, and equipment, and develops wiles to misdirect audience attention from the real sequence. In the end, the audience observes something that seems to be simple, but in fact it may have been achieved with substantial effort, preparation, practice, and thought on the magician’s part. The lovely assistant in a gossamer gown apparently floating effortlessly on her back during the levitation illusion is in fact being held up by a 600-pound pneumatic lift hidden behind the specially rigged curtain. It is the very simplicity of the illusory sequence, the shorthand summary that circumvents all the poor magician’s toil, which makes the trick so compelling.”

Losing and controlling weight appears as if it’s just about willpower — willing something to take place, but really it’s about the preparation, the practice, the failure, planning, etc.

Wegner continues: “The real causal sequence underlying human behavior involves a massively complicated set of mechanisms. Each of our actions is really the culmination of an intricate set of physical and mental processes, including psychological mechanisms that correspond to the traditional concept of will – in that they involve linkages between our thoughts and our actions. ”

Weight loss / control is not as simple as willing yourself NOT to eat that cookie. It’s about having an alternative plan in place, thinking in advance about events before they take place (Mental Rehearsal); what you will eat instead of the high calorie cookie (Calorie Bargains), how to make sure those types of food are not even in your sight ( Don’t Be A Diet Hero); and figuring ways to make your weight control automatic.

Again, my goal here is to help give more of an understanding of why the mere presence of willpower, a resolve to eat healthy (not eat the “bad” stuff) and or to exercise more, will probably not cut it for weight control.Put that “willpower” energy into something that will make a difference: planning, practice, education, etc.It will be worth it.

Thanks again for reading, and as always, I read ALL your comments, and learn from them. In fact, that’s why I’ve delved into this — and I plan to do even more research into the understanding of willpower.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charles Platkin, PhD

Charles Platkin, PhD, MPH, The Diet Detective, is one of the country's leading nutrition and public health advocates, whose syndicated health, nutrition and fitness column, the Diet Detective appears in more...read more